I have a buddy who goes on fishing trips with them every 2 years and says good things as well.Not a hunt, but my Dad did a fishing trip with Papa Bear about 2 years back and hasn’t stopped taking about it. The group he went with has been going for 15-20 years and always goes through Papa Bear
Hey guys I’m looking to hunt the west side of Alaska and narrowed it down to these two and everything seems amazing between the two so it feels like splitting hairs but I’d love to know if there are any deciding factors to think about between the two that I may be missing. I’d love any feedback
exactly what William is telling you...i did my research like you are doing now but back in 2019 and got drawn to hunt this year. We had a great and successful hunt with Papa Bear and i've either spoke, emailed, or read from literally hundreds of people on this topic....hands down Papa Bear is the choice. Not everybody has a bad issue with Renfro's but i've talked to a lot of people that have, NOBODY i've talked to has had anything but great things to say about Papa....just my .02This is correct. To be fair, Wade is operating on floats and wheels while Justin is only operating on floats. Obviously gives him more opportunity for added groups. There are a lot of good hunting spots in GMU 18, to the points that even the "bad" ones are better than most anywhere else in the state. But there are limited excellent spots. Justin focuses in on 20-25 excellent spots. He expects all of his clients to shoot a moose and when they don't, it's typically b/c it was a bowhunter, an early exit, or someone passed themselves out of a moose. Also, Justin has several days during the heart of the season where he has no groups or maybe one group booked. They are factored in weather days. PB isn't so much a smaller operation. They have 3 planes hooked to heaters each night and could easily be pumping out 6-8 groups a day during the first 20 days of the season. they just choose to operate on a different scale.
It's always amazing that none of these threads bring up the #1 thing people should be looking at when booking an air transporter. That's safety and company flight records. Do your own research. Even the best pilots/companies screw up. An accident every decade can happen, anything over that is absolutely unacceptable and gets a big red X from me.